Tag: UK setting

Categories
Book reviews TuesdayBookBlog

#TuesdayBookBlog The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (@CathChidgey)

Hi, all:

I bring you a book by an author new to me, but one that I will follow in the future.

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey

England, 1979. Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a secluded New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Every day, the triplets do their chores, play their games and take their medicine, under the watchful eyes of three mothers: Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night.

Their nightmares are recorded in The Book of Dreams.
Their lessons are taken from The Book of Knowledge.
And their sins are reported in The Book of Guilt.

All the boys want is to be sent to the Big House in Margate, where they imagine a life of sun, sea and fairground rides. But, as the government looks to shut down the Sycamore Homes, the triplets begin to question everything they have been told.

Gradually surrendering its dark secrets, The Book of Guilt is a profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others.

About the author:

Catherine Chidgey (born 8 April 1970) is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer and university lecturer. She has published eight novels. Her honours include the inaugural Prize in Modern Letters;the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (South East Asia and Pacific Region); the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on two occasions; and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize.

My review:

I discovered this book thanks to NetGalley, and I went ahead and bought it when it was published.

I had never read any books by Catherine Chidgey before, but the description of this book intrigued me enormously, and it lived up to my expectations.

This book is set in a somewhat dystopian parallel historical universe, as it takes place in the UK, most of it in 1979, but there are important changes in the situation and history of the XX century we are familiar with. WWII in this novel didn’t end with clear winners and losers. Instead, there was an agreement between both sides that changed the political situation, but not only that. One of the important things that changed was the sharing of the “research” and the conclusions of the “experiments” that took place in the concentration camps, resulting in some scientific advancements like the discovery of DNA in the late 1930s, and there are other unseen and unexpected consequences that readers discover in the book.

The story is told from three different points of view, clearly marked and differentiated. The first one, narrated in the first person, is that of Vincent, a teenager and one of a triplet of orphaned brothers who always dress in the same colour to avoid confusing the people taking care of them. They live in a peculiar orphanage, where three “mothers” (one for the morning, one for the afternoon, and one for the night) look after them. The orphanage is isolated, and they have only very limited contact with the outside world. They follow pretty rigid routines: there is a Book of Dreams, where Morning Mother records their dreams every morning; they receive their education from reading and learning the Book of Knowledge, a children’s encyclopedia with a missing page; and if they do anything wrong, that is recorded in the Book of Guilt, which gives name to the novel. The novel is peppered with fragments from the Book of Knowledge (the author mentions the sources she consulted in a section at the end), and also with some descriptions of the children’s dreams and their wrongdoings.

The three children are fighting an unnamed illness (“a bug”), the mothers also record their symptoms regularly, and they are visited by a kind and elderly doctor who adjusts their medication according to their symptoms. The three brothers (Vincent, William, and Lawrence) are the only three children left now in the orphanage, as the children who recover are sent to Margate, where they can enjoy the seaside resort, with all it has to offer, and live together in a big house.

Changes in the government result in changes in their situation, such as the possibility of going on errands to a nearby town, and even bigger changes that are in the planning as we are introduced to the story.

The second point of view belongs to Nancy, a girl who lives with her parents, but her life is also isolated, as they don’t allow her to mix with anybody, and there are secrets she cannot grasp.

The third point of view, narrated in the third person like Nancy’s, belongs to the Minister of Loneliness, a married woman focused on her career who is given a mission by the female Prime Minister: to dismantle the homes and try to place all the remaining children with families. She comes into contact with the triplets and ends up becoming involved beyond the call of political duty.

The novel is divided into three parts, each named after one of the books the children’s lives revolve around, and it reminded me of a book by Ishiguro I read a while ago, and I loved: Never Let Me Go. The writing style is very different, though, and I won’t go into details about both plots to avoid spoilers. Those who read this one and have read the other one (which I recommend as well) can make their own minds up.

Readers from the UK will find references to a variety of events TV programmes, products, places, famous people, and even pretty well-known news items that will sound familiar. As mentioned, the author includes a note on the sources she consulted and was inspired by, and that might help join the dots for other readers.

I enjoyed the different narrators and trying to work out how they might interconnect. Also, I am a fan of unreliable narrators, and, for different reasons and in different ways, several (or even all) the narrators might be considered unreliable here. It is a novel that brings up interesting questions, as novels set in parallel historical universes tend to do. “Could something like that happen here and now?” is one of the questions most people will ask themselves. I will leave it to each reader to decide, but for me at least, it is not unthinkable.

A fascinating story, full of intriguing ideas and with characters who are unusual, complex, and morally ambiguous, so, pretty much like most of us. Judging by this novel, I will follow with interest this author’s work in the future.

Thanks to all of you for your ongoing support, for visiting, liking, sharing, and commenting. And, of course, Merry Christmas! Have a lovely holiday season, and let’s hope 2026 is much kinder and brighter for all.

And I thought I’d leave you with a Catalan Christmas Carroll, that many of you might have heard in other languages as well. A friend suggested I dedicate a post to the Catalan language, but I haven’t been organised enough to do that yet. Let’s make this a little introduction to it. Oh, and pay attention to the background. It’s el Palau de la Música Catalana, a fabulous building I recommend you visit if you come to Barcelona. It’s not by Gaudí, but the architect was a contemporary of his, and pretty famous as well, Lluís Domènech i Montaner.

Categories
Book reviews TuesdayBookBlog

#TuesdayBookBlog SVF-1 Series Books 2 and 3, Darkness and Reset by Terry Tyler (@TerryTyler4)

Hi all:

I am back to reviewing the rest of the SVF-1 Series by Terry Tyler. These short novels are a pretty quick but intense read, and I decided to share the two in one go, so you can go and get the whole series if you fancy the sound of it. And in case you didn’t read my review of Infected, you can find it here.

About the author:

Terry Tyler is the author of twenty-seven books available from Amazon, the latest being the SFV-1 rage virus trilogy: Infected, Darkness and Reset. Other recent publications include ‘Where There’s Doubt‘, the story of a romance scammer and his prey, and ‘Megacity‘, the final book in the dystopian Operation Galton trilogy. Happy to be independently published, Terry is an avid reader and book reviewer, and a member of Rosie Amber’s Book Review Team.

Terry is a Walking Dead addict, and has a great interest in history (particularly Saxon, Plantagenet and Tudor), along with books and documentaries on sociological/cultural/anthropological subject matter. She loves South Park, the sea, and going for long walks in quiet places where there are lots of trees. She lives in the north east of England with her husband.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5821157.Terry_Tyler

Cover of book Darkness: SVF-1 Series Book 2 by Terry Tyler. There is the face of a man in first line, a tree branch and a hangman's noose hanging from it, with some human shapes in the shadow on the background.
Darkness: SVF-1 Series Book 2 by Tery Tyler

DARKNESS: SVF-1 Series Book 2 by Terry Tyler

‘This isn’t all our lives are going to be. It’s the darkness before the dawn, that’s all.’

The SFV-1 virus leaves its victims with no instinct other than the need to kill – and eat.

Nine months after this strange new disease scorched a path across the world, Norah and her friends are doing their best to survive in rural Cumbria – but another, larger group is on a mission to ‘redistribute the wealth’ by whatever means they deem necessary.

Meanwhile, new arrivals on the Scottish island of John’s Drift seem friendly enough, but Cat’s group hears warning bells from the start…

‘People react to fear in all sorts of ways; a weak individual falls in with the wrong people, and hey presto: basic human decency loses the battle against that dark side you never knew was hiding inside your head.’

Darkness is the second book in the SFV-1 series. The next installment, Reset, will be available soon.

My review:

I have been following Terry Tyler’s writing career and her novels for a while. Although she writes in a variety of genres, she has written several dystopian series (and started well ahead of the COVID pandemic, so that tells you something about the way her mind works), and she has managed to win me over to a genre I had read very little of beforehand.

She sets her novels mostly in the UK, and anybody who has lived there will appreciate how accurate her depiction of the attitudes and the settings are. Although the plots are the fruit of her imagination, the characters, their interactions, and the locations make it all worryingly believable.

As I mentioned in my review of the first short novel in the SFV-1 series, readers should try to read the stories in the right order, to get the most ‘enjoyment’ (that being a relative term in this genre) of the stories, as the three short novels were conceived as a trio, and the overall story is developed over the three. But, fear not if you’ve left a bit of a gap between reading the first novel and this one, as the author shares a recap and summary of what happened in Infected that should help refresh readers’ memories. And once you start reading, the story grabs you and you’re all in.

Although some time has passed since the first novel, it is quick and easy to catch up with what has been happening, and I was happy to see how the characters I got to know in the first novel were doing and also to get to know some new characters. We also learn things we might have suspected about some of the characters we became familiar with in the first novel (I’m talking about you, Lion), and some of the intrigue and questions we were left wondering about in the first book are answered, at least to a point, in this one. Of course, as it couldn’t be otherwise, we end up with more questions, but that is as it should be.

I don’t want to go into the details of the plot too much, as I don’t want to spoil this story (and the previous one) for people, but let’s say that some of the characters we knew manage to create a life of sorts for themselves in the desolate and dangerous new order of things, at least for a while, there are some nasty surprises for some, and it seems as if every group of survivors have decided on a different strategy to keep going. Unfortunately, many of those seem to rely on using force and threats to overpower others, rather than joining efforts and working hard together. If you had imagined that there must be a master plan going on somewhere, behind the scenes, you will get your answer here, although one wonders about best-laid plans and all that.

As was the case with the previous novel, each chapter is told from a different point of view, but this is clearly marked, so readers need not worry about getting confused, especially because the characters’ outlooks and voices are very different. Most of the chapters, at least those that are dedicated to “normal” people rather than those who are in positions of power or influence, are in the first-person, and that might not suit all readers, but I liked the distinction, as that makes readers feel closer to those characters who are more like themselves, and to be able to observe the others from a certain distance. Not that the next-door type of folks always behave in a way that would make us feel proud or reassured, but, as I have said, the author is good at creating realistic and believable characters, and even those who are not always sympathetic tend to be understandable, as it is not that difficult to put ourselves on their shoes. After all, surviving in a post-apocalyptic world where nothing can be taken for granted, you have to hunt and fight for the bare necessities, and you might be killed at any moment by a zombie is no picnic.

My warnings would be the same as I had mentioned for part 1. There is violence, threats, and this is not a series where you should expect happy endings, so there might be heartache for readers, especially for those who get very attached to characters, but I do not hesitate to recommend part 2 of the series to anybody who enjoys dystopian novels, those who have read part 1, fans of the author, in general, and anybody who enjoys a dynamic, fast-moving, and well-written story with strong characters. And I am happy I can move on to part 3 right away.

Cover of Reset: SVF-1 Series Book 3. Sepia coloured. A face of a young man with long hair on the cover, a big pipe on the top, a window at the back.
Reset: SVF-1 Series Book 3 by Terry Tyler

Reset: SVF-1 Series Book 3 by Terry Tyler

‘If one person goes out there and gets bitten, the whole place could collapse within hours.’

Danger, deception and devastating decisions set the stage in this final part of the UK post-apocalyptic SFV-1 trilogy.

The rage virus pandemic marches on, though Norah and her friends are behind safe walls at last. Within The Moors community there is peace to be found, but how long can this happy state of affairs continue?

In a secret bunker in Surrey, Larry Farnsworth’s great Reset consortium is fast-tracking the plan to reclaim the country, with Julian Sweet a key player. In the North, Flint and his Berserkers are determined to stay independent of any restrictive new laws for as long as possible.

‘It’s a luxurious prison that we walked into of our own accord. Everything you could possibly need within walking distance. All you need if you’re a robot, anyway.’

My review:

After reading the two previous short novels in the SFV-1 series (Infected and Darkness), I had to keep going to know how it all ended. And it was quite a ride.

At the end of Book 2 (Darkness), we got a hint of the plans to rebuild the country (the UK, although it seems likely that other countries were doing similar things as well) following the debacle caused by the virus SFV-1. We all have recent experiences with pandemics in mind, but, thankfully, those didn’t turn people into zombies without even killing them first. If there was chaos due to COVID-19, it doesn’t bear thinking about what something like this might bring (although we have quite a few series and books to give us some ideas).

In this third novel, we follow many of the characters we already knew to their new destinations and I can tell you that not all of them do well. The system implemented in the new settlements creates a social order of sorts, dividing people up into categories according to some previous personality/attitude tests. Without elaborating too much on it, I’ll say that questioning the established order and asking probing questions don’t endear people to the leaders running the show. And, those who have read the previous two books will know that some of the protagonists aren’t the type to keep their mouths shut and simply go along with what they are told.

The chapters alternate the points of view of many of the characters we already know, and we keep on learning things that were not always evident about them (although some we might have suspected for quite a while). There are losses, there are episodes of revenge, rebelliousness, cowardice, betrayal, and all the gamut of emotions possible. We also get to see things from perspectives that are uncomfortable and scary, but they make the narrative even more gripping and disturbing. Many of the chapters are narrated in the first person, but there are some narrated in the third person, and that is consistent for the same characters throughout the series, so it is not a cause of confusion. It is clearly marked as well, and it allows us to appreciate and identify more with some of the characters, and, at least in my case, those are my favourites (even if I don’t always agree with them).

All of the novels are filled with adventures and there is not a dull moment, and this one is no exception. Although things seem to have settled somewhat and there is a big change in the circumstances of many of the characters when the book starts, there are all kinds of things happening from the very beginning; we get to learn a lot about how everything is run, and even though there are low and dark moments, the protagonists have grown and gained in resilience and determination thanks to the ordeal, and they keep going and doing whatever is necessary.

I really enjoyed this novel. I suffered and felt bad for some of the characters, I cheered at times, I got angry at some of the things they had to go through, and I enjoyed the ending. Well… Almost, because there is an epilogue. And I won’t go into any details, of course, not to spoil the story.

So, my warnings are pretty much the same as before. As would be expected, there are scary scenes, there are violent scenes, and there is the occasional bad language (quite funny at times too). I mentioned the first-person narrative (I think that adds rather than detracts from the story, but I know that is a subjective reader thing). The main warning or piece of advice is that, as the author explains all through the books, this is a series, and the books should be read in the right order. The author always includes a recap for those who might have read the other novels a while back, and it is detailed enough to jog one’s memory, but yes, do read the novels in the right order to enjoy not only the story but also the characters’ development, because the author excels at both. Oh, and the author’s note at the end promises a change of direction. And I, for one, I’m eager to see what is coming up next.

Just to summarise: Read them all and read them now. And enjoy.

I thank the author for providing me with an ARC copy of this book, which I freely chose to review.

Thanks to the author for another great series, and thanks to all of you for visiting, reading, liking, sharing, commenting, and always being here and being supportive. You are all stars. And, although a bit late, Happy Holidays and I hope 2024 is a great year! We all need it!

Categories
Book reviews TuesdayBookBlog

#TuesdayBookBlog Infected (SFV-1 Series) Book 1 by Terry Tyler (@TerryTyler4)

Hi, all:

I have become a big fan of Terry Tyler, mostly by reading her dystopian series (although I keep meaning to read some of her novels in other genres), and here she revisits the genre with a series of short novels, for those who prefer a shorter read. As I mention later, Terry got novels 1 (Infected) and 2 (Darkness) published at the same time, so if you enjoy the first one as much as I did, be reassured that you can carry on reading the second).

Infected (SFV-1 Series) Book 1 by Terry Tyler

Infected (SVF-1 Series) Book 1 by Terry Tyler

‘Every time someone gets bitten, that’s one more of them and one less of us.’

 SFV-1: a virulent virus that sends its hosts into a state of extreme rage and ravenous hunger. When it attacks the UK, 127 people are infected within the first hour.

 London wife and mother Cat is taking part in TV reality show Year Out, on a remote Scottish island.   Her world turns dark when the TV crew fail to arrive for the monthly health check—her one lifeline to her family is now broken. 

 Completely absorbed in the commission of a lifetime, artist Norah ignores what is taking place outside the safety of her studio, until the virus reaches her hometown and a shocking event jolts her back into reality.

 Lion, a stressed out marketing consultant, is enjoying a month away from his hectic online life in northern Cumbria when he encounters a worrying sight in a nearby village. Is it some kind of zombie? It can’t be, can it?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/134090410-infected?

https://bookgoodies.com/a/B0C951FJZQ

About the Author

Terry Tyler is the author of twenty-four books available from Amazon, the latest being ‘Where There’s Doubt‘, about a romance scammer. Also recently published is ‘Megacity‘, the final book in the dystopian Operation Galton trilogy. She is currently at work on a post apocalyptic series, which will probably take the form of three novellas. Proud to be independently published, Terry is an avid reader and book reviewer, and a member of Rosie Amber’s Book Review Team.

Terry is a Walking Dead addict, and has a great interest in history (particularly 12th-17th century), along with books and documentaries on sociological/cultural/anthropological subject matter. She loves South Park, the sea, and going for long walks in quiet places where there are lots of trees. She lives in the north east of England with her husband.

My review:

I came across Terry Tyler a few years back, at the time when she started publishing her first dystopian series, Project Renova, and although that is not one of my go-to genres, I became hooked by her ability to combine gripping plots and a cast of complex characters that, good or bad, you feel drawn to and want to know what is going to happen to. And, if I am to judge by the first short novel in this series, she has managed to do the same again.

Allow me to open my review with a warning. If you set off on this journey, and you start reading this series, be prepared to carry on. The author explains in her introduction that the novels in the SFV-1 series cannot be read independently, because the full story will be split up into several volumes, and although you might start to get an idea of what is going on and suspect where they might go, you are bound to be left with more questions than answers after reading Infected. And, although Tyler states that she will include a recap of the story so far in the following novellas in the series, readers who start with one of the other books are likely to miss too much of the story and have a less satisfying experience. And those who only read the first will be left wondering. At least I am.

The book’s description introduces the situation and the main characters, which should suffice to give readers a good idea of the situation and some of the issues the characters are likely to face, therefore, I will try to avoid any spoilers. I can add that each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view. Norah and Lion tell their story in the first person, while Cat’s is told in the third person, although always from her point of view. They are not the only ones whose stories we are told, though. Lion (I really like Juno, Lion’s mother-in-law) and Norah aren’t alone when they set off trying to find a safe place, and Cat is sharing her TV adventure with some companions as well. But there are others we meet, some fleetingly, some in more detail, and one of the things I most enjoyed from this novella was how we got to see things from their points of view as well and even experience them as if we were inside of their brains and bodies, scary as that might be at times. (Because, yes, the reader’s experience isn’t immune to the virus either).

The book starts with a prologue that sets off the story and gives readers a hint of what is to come, although perhaps not quite the scale of it. The three main characters are confronted with an out-of-control pandemic (plague, I’d call it), because of their peculiar circumstances: Both, Cat and Lion were in out-of-reach environments when things went pear-shaped, and in Norah’s case, she self-isolated to create her art and insisted in burying her head in the sand until she couldn’t ignore what was happening anymore. In that way, these three characters are the perfect companions for the reader, as they haven’t been following the news or realised how quickly things were deteriorating until it was too late, a bit like the readers, who are dropped into the situation without much warning either. These three characters are very different, in their outlooks, lifestyles, and motivations, and although I cannot say I liked them all straight away, they represent well the way human beings might react to such circumstances, and as we spend time with them, we see examples of coping strategies —some more adaptative and socially responsible than others— which ring true, especially considering recent events.

The world had to face an emergency health crisis not long ago, and as one reads this book, it is impossible not to wonder if we have learned anything. Would a new emergency be handled better and/or differently, or would our previous experience result in complacency and a false sense of security? This is a dystopic series, so you might guess the answer, but we are all less likely to feel reassured by the fact that this is a work of fiction than we might have been a few years back. What would we do if we were faced with the choices these characters are confronted with? It does not bear thinking about, but perhaps we should.

This is a book full of adventures, scares, extreme situations, characters taken to the limit, well-written, dynamic, touching, and moving at times; and it offers readers an opportunity to see the best and the worst of people’s behaviour. The veneer of civilisation might not be as thick as most of us would like, and when put to the test, it might be found wanting.

Any warnings? Well, there is violence, blood, gore (as is to be expected in this subgenre), and there is some swearing as well. I have mentioned that some parts of the novel are written in the first-person, so readers who dislike that need to take it into account. I have already said I am not a big follower of the genre, so I will not engage in comparisons with series, novels, or video games with similar story-lines, but having read a few horror stories, this isn’t, by far, the most explicit or extreme of the ones I’ve read, and the writing is impeccable, so, those who don’t scare easy, appreciate a touch of dark humour or two (the exchange between Juno and a girl about what a chilly is made me chuckle), and like the sound of it shouldn’t hesitate to try.

I am very impressed by the first novella in this new series, and I would recommend it to readers of dystopian fiction who love action, survival stories, appreciate well-drawn characters, and especially those who enjoy series and like to spend time getting to know all the players and getting invested in their lives and fates. Thankfully, the author plans on publishing the second novel within only a few weeks of the first, so the wait won’t be too long. (Oh, by the way, the author published both novels at the same time, so the second is also available and you can find it here).

I was provided with an early ARC copy of this novel (novella), and I freely decided to read it and review it.

Thanks to the author for providing me with this opportunity, thanks to all of you for reading, and remember to like, comment, click, and share with those who are likely to enjoy this series. I hope to keep you posted on the next books in the series.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started